Man Gets 2 1/2 Years For Bilking U.s.

November 21, 1989

NORFOLK — An ailing Newport News man who bilked the federal government out of $110,000 in Social Security disability payments was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Monday.

William R. Johnson, 48, had received 10 years' worth of disability payments while he worked various law enforcement jobs, ranging from security guard in Richmond to small-town police chief in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Federal law prevents people from receiving disability payments while working.

Johnson, who suffers from a heart condition, was caught when he applied for work at the Veterans Administration hospital in Hampton. Investigators discovered Johnson had two Social Security numbers and birth dates. When they asked him why he lied, he said he was in the federal witness protection program, a federal prosecutor said.

In asking for a lenient sentence, Johnson's attorney, Calvin R. DePew Jr., stressed Johnson's bad health and otherwise good behavior. "He served his country in the military, yet he is here today because he deceived it."

"There's a pattern here of misconduct" going back a decade, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan M. Salsbury.

"I'd like to apologize," Johnson said to U.S. District Judge John A. MacKenzie.

MacKenzie, who also ordered Johnson to repay the money he received, told the defendant, "You turned out to be a bigger crook, I suspect," than the people he arrested as a police chief.